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Hot-button issue may burn teacher

By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published November 11, 2006

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Lara Cerri] Southside Fundamental Middle School teacher Joseph McCoy has received complaints from several parents. Video: Excerpt of the 1983 student debate on abortion methods (Sensitive content) React: What do you think?

For more than two decades, a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Southside Fundamental Middle School has used hot-button topics to teach debate techniques.

One of his tools is a video he recorded in 1983 in which a former student describes, in vivid detail, several abortion methods.

Looking into the camera, the girl explains how a suction tube is inserted into a woman's uterus. She describes a procedure in which saline is injected into the abdomen, causing the fetus' brain to hemorrhage, and one in which a woman's womb is scraped with a sharp, spoon-like knife.

Joseph McCoy, 56, says no one has ever complained about the video - until now.

Several parents, including a School Board member whose 12-year-old daughter is in McCoy's class, either have written or called the school recently to express outrage. One parent apparently has filed a formal complaint against the educator, who has taught in Pinellas schools for 31 years.

The district investigated and ordered McCoy to stop using the video. A "letter of caution" was placed in his personnel file.

Word of the district's action - and of board member Nancy Bostock's involvement - prompted other parents to rise to McCoy's defense. A flurry of e-mails ensued. Rumors that McCoy would be fired circulated.

Now a lawyer who represents members of the teachers union has weighed in. Unless the district apologizes to McCoy and rescinds the letter of caution, Mark Herdman says he will file suit on McCoy's behalf, citing infringement of academic freedom.

"This notion that you're going to start to dictate what teachers can say in the classroom needs to be addressed with a great deal of care," Herdman said.

McCoy, who has taught debate to seventh-grade gifted students at Southside for 14 years, said he was caught off guard when an administrator in the Office of Professional Standards summoned him.

"She informed me I was not supposed to be showing the abortion video," McCoy said. "After using it for 23 years, I didn't think it was a problem."

But Southside principal Michael Miller, who said he was unaware the video was being used as a teaching tool, says School Board policy is clear on the use of controversial materials in the classroom.

The policy says teachers must notify the principal of "potentially controversial materials that may be considered offensive to reasonable persons within the community." If parents object to the materials, the teacher must provide "alternate instruction and an equal, equitable, alternate assignment."

McCoy, who says he "certainly would hope we would not abort" when asked his views on the subject, says a teacher must first think the material is controversial before such a conversation could take place.

But Valerie Brimm, the district administrator who investigated the case, says experienced educators should know which topics could raise eyebrows.

Besides, Brimm said, the district's guidelines on abortion are clear.

"Teachers may answer questions about it," she said, "but then they must move on. In this situation, kids were exposed to the subject without their parents' consent."

That's what upset Bostock. She went to the school with another parent to speak to the principal and called Brimm's office to find out if McCoy had been cautioned about using controversial materials.

She denies Herdman's claim that she used her position as a board member to go to district administrators rather than speaking to McCoy directly.

"I'm a parent first and foremost," she said. "I had already decided this was inappropriate material, and Mr. McCoy had already decided it was appropriate. Therefore, it had to go to the next level."

The issue has divided the parents of McCoy's students, who include several St. Petersburg Times staffers.

One supporter is Nancy Sanderbeck, who says she trusts his judgment completely.

"I can't imagine him doing anything that would be inappropriate for kids," she said. "These issues are absolutely age appropriate for these kids. If you don't want to believe that, you're fooling yourself."

In an effort to defuse the situation and to squelch rumors that McCoy will be fired, the Southside principal sent a letter home with his students Friday. The letter acknowledges that while some courses, including social studies, sometimes touch on controversy, teachers are expected to follow procedures "to ensure parents are fully aware of the issues discussed."

The letter has further inflamed McCoy.

"At this point, I'm almost numb," he said Friday. "This is almost like a spanking."

[Last modified November 11, 2006, 00:09:57]